Alterego
by Otte
Summary: MOTHER 3 spoilers ahoy! He'd been both looking forward to this, and dreading it all at the same time. As he returns to a place he swore he never would, he just happens to come face-to-face with the most annoying person he's ever met. Great. Oneshot


** Alter-ego**  
_ by Otte, who would have never guessed she'd ever write about magical transvestites_

The rocks felt damp and unstable beneath his heavy feet as Yokuba crept up the path, quietly simmering to himself about the pond water slopping over his sleek black boots and the moss clinging to the soles.

Even from outside the door, the nauseatingly feminine tang of perfumes and flowers barraged his senses. Screwing up his face in disgust and steeling himself against all the memories of this damnable place, he pushed the door open carefully. It would be a quick enough mission.

The door to the shell-shaped house swung open without a sound. The pink! Oh my pork, Yokuba thought to himself…he'd forgotten how ridiculously pink and frilly this place was. Gaudy lights were strung about the equally gaudy curtains, a big bold, gold-framed mirror hanging on the wall, even marked with the pink shape of a lip-mark. He had no doubt the vain little creatures would kiss themselves in the mirror, he thought bitterly. The table, a slab of wood perfumed and polished half to death, was adorned with doilies and crushed-ice glasses, elegant teapots, sparkling, obnoxiously clean cups, all arranged so neatly on the table. He chomped a banana down and threw the peel haphazardly at the neat tea set, smiling to himself as it sent everything askew. A few cups toppling from the edge of the tabletop with a satisfying smash!

"Nuhahahaha, I've been dying to do that for way too long," he sniggered, kicking the shards about and merely glad that none of the Magypsies were home. King P was keeping them all distracted enough, especially for this little mission of his. He only had about an hour, tops.

Instantly, he set to searching through the place, throwing aside all the neatly arranged plates and drapes and finding an immense satisfaction in trying to mimic the effects of a whirlwind in that stupid pretentious house. He only wished he could figure out what was playing that infuriating music, so he could smash it to bits and make it stop playing that pretty, pretty tune.

The click of high-heels on the path and the door swinging open; Yokuba wheeled around, ready for a fight and feeling a slight edge of panic swipe against his senses. He couldn't deal with facing them. No…they couldn't deal with facing him, he corrected himself stoutly.

"Well, well," said a voice. Yokuba always hated those Magypsies' voices, so airy and light and beautiful. It didn't fit that Adam's apple bouncing at their throats, he knew that much. He sniggered at his own little joke.

"If this isn't strange I don't know what is," the voice continued and Yokuba found himself glaring at the short figure of Aeolia, that ridiculous curly pink afro of hers (his, its, whatever) adding about a foot to her height. How she expected to be taken seriously, Yokuba would never understand.

Aeolia casually crossed the room, ignoring the mess and sat down on her large chair, propping her chin on the back of her hand elegantly, sat under the imposing figure of a gold lampshade. Yokuba stood frozen, unnerved by Aeolia's lack of reaction. Damnit, why'd it have to be Aeolia who caught him? Well…admittedly it was her house. But damnit! Why couldn't it have been any of the others…Aeolia was…well she was cunning. Oddly cunning and not to mention that she was…

"Oh well, Locria, you don't seem to have been doing too well since you left! You silly creature, that drag looks ridiculous on you and you do need to learn to shave that upper lip of yours now and then."

Ah yes. Extremely annoying, Yokuba thought, his teeth already on edge.

"Drag? Nuhahaha, have you seen yourself?" Yokuba guffawed.

"Yes, and I'm beautiful," Aeolia replied smugly, a smirk on her masculine features. Yokuba inhaled and resisted the urge to throttle the obnoxious wo…man…thing.

"You old fool", he retorted, a lot of anger in his voice but he was well-aware his retort was weak. Judging by Aeolia's confident expression and relaxed posture, she was well-aware of this.

An incredibly awkward silence fell between the two, and Yokuba found himself bitterly wishing that he hadn't come, that he had just left it, that Aeolia had never shown up, that King P's distractions were a bit more effective, that generally he could be in any situation but this one.

"Well…Locria…the least you could do is apply a little lipstick," Aeolia quite happily rolled out that horrible name and Yokuba resisted the urge to tip the table over her and punch the Magypsy in the face. That stupid, pretentious, callow name.

"I'm not Locria, I'm Yokuba if you hadn't noticed. Though you don't notice much more than your own ridiculous reflection," he said, and realised he had been chomping down on a banana for the past five minutes without noticing it.

Aeolia only made a brief, unconvinced but not unpolite noise in response, and continued to watch Yokuba as he searched through all the things, watching all her possessions fly through the air coolly.

"Locria?" Aeolia asked. Yokuba ignored her. If she wasn't going to fight or, for some bizarre reason only known by the logic of morons, protest Yokuba robbing her right in front of her, he had no reason to keep up this conversation. Or respond to that ridiculous name.

Despite himself, he found himself frantic, turning over boxes and tables and throwing open drawers in an increasingly violent storm of destruction. It had been at Aeolia's house, Yokuba was sure of it! The others weren't allowed to touch it, they couldn't have moved it…it wasn't allowed.

"You really need to consider losing a stone or two."

Before he realised quite what he was doing, he turned around on his toes and made a dash for the Magypsy, who had a smirk on her face and obvious laughter dancing in her eyes.

"Ex-cuse me?" he squealed in a voice very unlike Yokuba's…it was a voice of somebody else. Somebody who existed so long ago it felt more like a childhood dream than a solid, unmoveable part of his past.

"Ohohohoh, I knew you were under there somewhere Locria. It seems you never could get over that old self-consciousness about your weight." Aeolia giggled to herself and Yokuba muffled a long, explicit string of a curse words with his large hand. What the hell was the matter with him, exactly? There was a special kind of ridiculous to his actions just then, and it was called idiocy.

"Oh, you were always an odd bird, I must say," Aeolia continued as Yokuba continued to glare, remembering how much, exactly, he wanted to throttle this woman, even back in the old days.

"I remember you'd always be so impatient, rambling on about greater ends and complaining about how little we did and how little fun our little games were," she said, squeezing the word 'little' out from between her tongue and her teeth every time, clearly enjoying enunciating the word. Yokuba bristled – he didn't understand what Aeolia's point was, but it was getting on his nerves.

"Ah yes, and you never did pay proper attention to shaving techniques," she said absently, patting Yokuba's thick, bristly moustache and he quickly batted her hand away, "Though…you seem to have a skill for dying your hair. Oh, that dull black, are you sure you don't miss your lustrous pink curls?"

She giggled and tugged experimentally on his hat and he jumped away, horrified.

"Oh you silly, silly creature Locria," she said, tilting her head and looking at the strands of magenta hair sticking out from under his hat. Inhaling through his teeth, Yokuba adjusted the hat. He dearly wished that it was at all wise to initiate a fight with Aeolia, but that could only really have bad results. A fight between Magypsies had never been recorded so there was no way of knowing what could result. Some kind of explosion of PSI power, he anticipated. And he wasn't sure King P would approve of him blowing half the island up. He might even get demoted, have to live in the barracks with the common Pig Masks – imagine that!

"You're all going to die you know," he said, his voice oddly hysterical (what the hell, you idiot, stop screeching!), "You should know that. My King, King P? He's going to make sure you all die, in the end. Nuhahahaha, maybe you should send me a postcard from the afterlife? Nuhahahaha!"

Aeolia tilted her head and scratched her masculine chin thoughtfully.

"How unpleasant," she said mildly, as if she'd just notice a small zit on her cheek or something, "Dear Locria, you are getting yourself in hysteria. It's rather un-endearing."

He hated Aeolia, he hated this place, and he hated what a mess it made him whenever he had to brush his fingers over the world he'd once been a part of…he just wanted to leave. He was nearly out of bananas, he noticed with frustration, though only then noticed with some satisfaction the amount of banana peels tossed on the floor. He hoped that took a very long time to clean up.

"Aeolia, this can go over very smoothly, we can be on equal footing here and there'll be no need for us to…disagree, if you just give me back what is mine. Fair, isn't it? Nuhahaha, not that fair matters to you," he said, not even sure what he was guffawing at. The strong odour of the house was starting to get to him, he swore.

"Hm…I do believe you said you were Yokuba, correct?" Aeolia said, not even sounding like she had really listened to a word he'd said.

"Yes, the great and mighty," he growled, his muscles tensing and his brain boiling inside his head from sheer frustration.

"Oh, Mr Yokuba, sir, I'm afraid the item you're looking to belongs to my dear, dear friend Locria. I couldn't possibly give it to you, it's quite out of the question!" said Aeolia, clearly enjoying every second of this. My pork, Yokuba thought to himself, would she just shut up? He would take particular joy in seeing Aeolia's needle been taken and her life fading away. He'd also personally take a few seconds to interrogate her and ask her where the hell that annoying music was coming from so he could smash it to bits with his bare hands.

He snarled, unable to think of a decent retort, his muscles tensing and his fists just barely restraining themselves from flying forward and knocking Aeolia's pretty little teeth out her mouth.

"Of course," she drawled on, licking her teeth as if she were quite literally savouring the moment like it were a strawberry between her cheeks, "I'd be happy to give it to my dear friend Locria, it is hers after all and I am merely holding onto it as a friend, and a sister. Oh, we've all been missing her around her you know, she was an odd little creature, and perhaps a bit of a wild card and a rebel but still, we miss her dearly."

"Give me what I've came for or I'll be forced to knock that head of yours to the floor, and take it by force," he said, grinning, "Do you really think I'll restrain myself? Nuhahaha, you must be as stupid as you look!"

Aeolia merely smiled, and Yokuba knew his bluff wouldn't work.

"Oh dear me, is that any way to speak to a lady Mr Yokuba?" she said airily, in mock concern. She laughed airily and began nonchalantly re-applying her make-up.

He suppressed a sigh of defeat and nervously reached up to his hat. It was such a ridiculous situation. Still…King P had told him to retrieve it at whatever cost. For what reasons, he wasn't sure. The almighty King must know something about the Magypsies not even Yokuba understood. Maybe it was something he'd forgotten, being alive for countless centuries made you tend to forget the minor details in life.

He lifted the hat and let his short magenta hair bounce down around his head – it grew too fast to keep track of and any dyes didn't seem very effective against it, it obstinately grew out pink again and he could see the black tips where he'd attempted to get it under control. King P, whenever he saw his hair, would laugh hysterically and tell him he could hardly run from what a complete girly-butt he was. The King was crude like that.

"Oh Locria! How lovely to see you again! You will not believe the crude visitor I've just had, some Mr Yokuba. Such a chubby, crude man, certainly too rough and violent for a delicate lady like myself to deal with all alone," Aeolia said, putting one hand to her cheek in false melodrama.

Oh just shut up, he hissed to himself. He was sick and tired of playing along with Aeolia's bizarre little theatrics, the quicker he got out of his damned place the better.

"Can I have my memento back?" he said glumly, letting that bizarre light voice flow out of his mouth again. He'd never live this down. He could only hope the King hadn't bugged him before he left, he was sure to be having a good laugh in that little playroom of his watching as one of his top men lost the remaining scraps of his dignity to some bizarre afro-toting cross-dresser.

"Of course, my dear sister, of course you may," Aeolia replied, putting a hand under the throne and pulling out a little pink handbag, "I always like to keep it on my person, in case some horrible little man attempts to steal it."

She unclipped the clasp and pulled out two very unremarkable items – a razor and an old lipstick.

"I can't imagine why you'd need these though, they'd only have any real use if you died," she said and laughed. It was creepy, really, there wasn't any joke. Unless he was just being regarded as a joke in general, "I suppose somebody could find some use for them. I've heard that destroying these or separating these could incapacitate a Magypsie. But who knows, it hasn't happened in our generation and the last generation was centuries ago now."

She handed the razor and the lipstick to Yokuba, who snatched them up and stuffed them in his pockets, unnerved by Aeolia's sinister tone.

"Oh, are you leaving already Locria? Well please visit again," she said pleasantly as Yokuba reopened the front door, "At our tea parties there's always a terribly vacant chair, and if you feel like filling it again you're quite welcome to. That is, if you can remember. I'm sure you're busy."

He slammed the door behind him.

"And I'm sure you have no idea what you're getting yourself into."


End file.
